1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a POS (point-of-sales) terminal group management device, and more specifically to a POS terminal group management device connected to both a plurality of POS terminal devices for registering data related to commodities (inclusive of services) and a sales management device for managing sales in stores.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As is well known, a number of POS terminal devices are equipped in a large store such as supermarket. These POS terminal devices are connected to a sales management device for managing sales via a POS terminal group management device. On the basis of setting messages from the sales management device, information indicative of an range of data to be collected in checking sales situation or in exactly calculating sales is determined. On the basis of the determined range, sales data of each POS terminal device are collected and transmitted to the sales management device. In the above description, when the current sales situation is checked, data stored in a memory unit of the POS terminal are kept stored, while after the sales are exactly calculated, data stored in a memory unit of the POS terminal are cleared.
In the prior-art management device, however, the range of data to be collected in sales check or sales calculation is determined uniformly, it has been impossible to change the range of data to be collected in each POS terminal device.
In a tenant building or a shopping center, detailed sales information is required for the directly managed stores. However, rough sales information (e.g. sales amount and the number of customers) is sufficient for other stores. Further, there exists a case where detailed sales information is collected once a month, and therefore rough information is sufficient on an ordinary occasion. As described above, in the prior art management device, since the range of data (sales information) to be collected is determined, there exist problems in that much time is spent to collect unnecessary data or it takes much time for checking processing or exact calculation processing. In addition, since labor time of the operators of the POS terminal devices and the sales management device increases the collected data are usually late in coming back.